


Sightless Conversations

by CGJ



Series: Conversations with Zuko [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, First fic in fandom, Gen, I'm Bad At Titles, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Iroh is a Good Uncle (Avatar), Katara bashing is forbidden in this house, Katara is a gorgeous QUEEN, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, Toph Beifong and Zuko are Siblings, Toph looks at Zuko and says "imma keep him", Zuko also says "hell yeah", and Ozai, and we stan, cause it's Zuko, i just thought it sounded cool so ignore it lol, might edit this later idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:54:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29974908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CGJ/pseuds/CGJ
Summary: "Zuko was her big brother now."Or,How Toph ends up adopting a Firebender, and how he adopts her as well.
Relationships: Toph Beifong & Zuko
Series: Conversations with Zuko [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2204763
Comments: 6
Kudos: 135





	Sightless Conversations

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [One Big Happy Family — *Toph*](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24871927) by [HufflepuffChildOfApollo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HufflepuffChildOfApollo/pseuds/HufflepuffChildOfApollo). 



Zuko wasn’t bad.

Toph hadn’t known what to expect from the guy that had seemingly chased her friends all over the world, but she certainly hadn’t expected him to be the way he was.

Zuko was the Firelord’s son. He’d been raised in utmost luxury, surrounded by wealth. And he’d apparently chased them all over with utter disregard for anyone’s safety. Toph knew that it wasn’t going to be all sunshine and roses being raised by the Firelord, but she’d assumed that Zuko would be reasonably well off.

Which is to say, she’d expected him to some sort of holier-than-thou type of asshole, but he was just…not. Like, not at all.

From what she’d heard from Sokka’s insults and Katara’s angry tirades, Zuko was a loud, angry, backstabbing bastard who was supposed to have a ponytail, which he didn’t.

He also wasn’t loud. He didn’t even make any noise. And he clearly wasn’t going to stab them in the back anytime soon, she was sure.

He said he’d come to train Aang. And he did, and then he wasn’t around them at all, unless it was for dinner or lunch, in which case he sat far away from their group, eating the small portion which Sugar Queen had set out for him. He’d offered to help out with chores once, but Sweetness had turned on him with the un-sweetest glare she’d ever felt and he’d never asked again.

He clearly needed some lessons in socialisation, and Toph had nothing better to with her time. She couldn’t exactly bend at full capacity with her burnt feet, and harassing Sokka could only entertain you for so long before it just became uninteresting for both parties involved.

Since no one else seemed interested, she would integrate him into their little band. By the time she was done with him, he’d be the most social version of himself that he could be, and that was a fact.

* * *

Toph figured that since he had burnt her feet, he owed her big time. She waved off his apologies and bossed him around like nobody’s business. It was so entertaining. She made him carry her around, bring her her food, and even take over her chores. And the best (or worst, depending on who you asked) part was that he actually did it.

He never complained, not once. He did everything without a word. Even when she’d made him run around the whole temple twice just to see when he’d snap, he hadn’t. He’d done it.

So weird. She didn’t understand how anyone could have ever been afraid of him. Hell, he was the one afraid of them, from the way his heart raced and pumped like he was one step away from a panic attack at any moment. That probably wasn’t very healthy. Well, that was one thing Toph was trying to fix anyway.

“So what made you decide to leave your shitty dad and join us anyway? No offense, but if I were you, I would have taken the first chance to get outta there.” She wrapped her arms tighter around his shoulders as he stumbled briefly, but he righted himself quickly. 

“Um, well, it took me a long time to realise what my fathe- the Firelord was doing was wrong. Once I did, I had to help the Avatar restore balance to the world. I have to save my people.”

Toph rolled her eyes and grinned. “Alright then.” 

Zuko seemed to hesitate. Maybe he had expected some sort of dramatic reaction from her, but Toph didn’t do that sort of stuff. Katara was dramatic enough for the both of them.

“Yeah Sparky, I believe you.”

“Sparky?”

“Yeah, unless you want me to call you Hotman too.”

“Sparky’s fine, thank you.”

There was silence for a while, and Toph could feel Zuko gearing up to say something. 

“Why do you trust me so much? No one else seems to. I mean…” He faltered, and trailed off uncertainly.

“Well Sparky, for one, I know when people lie. I feel it with my Earthbending, and you were about as sincere as it gets. It’s their problem if they don’t see that yet.”

“Well, they have every right to hate me after everything I’ve done to them. I don’t blame them. I don’t deserve to be here."

Toph didn’t have anything to say to that, so she settled for scoffing and ordering him to bring her to Aang so that they could have their Earthbending lesson. He had absolutely no self-worth at all, it was kinda sad. 

Toph was going to have her work cut out for her to turn this hot, steaming mess of a Firebender into a functional human being.

* * *

Toph hung out with Zuko whenever she could. Her feet had gotten better a while ago, but she still ordered Zuko to do stuff for her, and he still did it without complaint. She indulged him in conversation although she was the one who did most of the talking.

She would never admit it, but she had become pretty fond of him.

Zuko was a hot mess no doubt, but he was a pretty adorable mess. Dude was awkward as hell and could not take a compliment.

She remembered the way he had introduced himself to them, going all “Hello, Zuko here.” And stammered through a speech. For a prince, he had remarkably bad speaking skills.

He also loved theatre, which was something Toph could never appreciate since she couldn’t read and had never attended a play in her life, but it was cute to see him so passionate about something which was not Avatar hunting. He was such a big dork.

It was endearing, to say the least. 

She told him all about the stupid shit that the gang had gotten into before he’d joined them, and he told her about his time as a refugee in the Earth kingdom.

“Damn, sunshine. You were really a highway bandit, huh?” She refused to listen as he stammered his way through a frantic denial. “That’s pretty cool.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, Sparky. That’s cool as shit.” She wouldn’t know, but she had been told that Zuko turned really red, whatever that was, when he was embarrassed, and Toph guessed that he was doing that now. He really didn’t know how to take compliments.

“So, what other cool stories have you got for me?” He seemed really flustered about everything he was revealing to her, and Toph enjoyed it because she was an asshole like that.

And Zuko had done some darn awesome things.

“I, uh, I broke the Avatar-” She heard the way he paused after that, and stifled a laugh. Zuko didn’t hear her, or he didn’t mention it.”I mean, Aang out of a Fire Nation prison.” Pretty good, but not something she couldn’t do-

“Without bending.”

Toph was impressed. But she would never give him the satisfaction. She was pretty sure that he was already smirking.

“I was kidnapped by two Earthbenders and bended metal to escape.” She bent a metal column and twisted it into a circle just to prove a point, and laughed loudly at his stunned silence.

Screw her, she liked him.

* * *

She was cool with Zuko, but the rest of them were certainly not.

Sokka hated Zuko’s guts, Katara hated everything about Zuko, and Aang was just there. Toph loved them, but she really needed them to pull their heads out of their asses. She knew enough about royalty from the lessons on history that she had been forced to sit through that Zuko had committed treason(and that should be obvious even If she hadn’t known anything about the Fire Nation)and he wasn’t going to be welcomed back anytime soon.

Of course, Sugar Queen still thought that Zuko could betray them, even though Zuko was a shitty liar, and made her displeasure clear several times a day. It was really annoying.

Sokka kept shooting Zuko ugly glares and assaulted him with the full might of his sarcasm, and whenever Toph felt Zuko curl into himself she would throw rocks at Sokka and lead Zuko away, much to his displeasure.

Aang was conflicted and there wasn’t much Toph could do about that anyway.

Well, they were missing out. Zuko was great and she had him all to herself. Their loss.

But still, they had to warm up to him sometime, and all their glaring and yelling was really not helping Toph turn Zuko into a normal teenager.

So, she took matters into her own hands, and pulled Zuko to sit next to her when it was time for dinner, ignoring his squeak of surprise or Snoozles’ cry of outrage as she plopped down next to him. 

Katara opened her mouth, but Toph latched onto Zuko’s arm with all her might and glared in Katara’s general direction. She heard Sugar Queen’s mouth snapping shut, and smiled to herself.

Naturally, no one except Toph enjoyed the still silence that followed. Snoozles being Snoozles, broke the silence, which Toph did appreciate. “Well, this is reeeeally weird.” 

Toph felt Zuko squirm, and punched him on his shoulder. He just sighed, used to her strange display of affection.

“So Sifu Hotman! How did you get into Ba Sing Se? We didn’t see you with Azula when she got in.” Bless Aang, he was way better at this than she was, but she was still damn good.

“Yeah, Zuko, how did you get into Ba Sing Se?” Toph didn’t like the snide tone of voice that Sugar Queen was using. Of course she would bring her personal vendetta into this.

“Um…my Uncle and I were in Ba Sing Se for a long time before Azula came in.” He paused, and Toph nudged him to continue. She’d already heard this one. “We worked at a Tea Shop.”

“You, a Tea Shop. I don’t believe it.”

“Hello, human lie detector here!” ”Sorry Toph.”

“Well, how did you get into the palace?” Katara was pretty angry at this point, and Toph could tell that she was going to blow up while Zuko painfully recounted his side of the story.

“And you chose to side with your sister, after you betrayed your uncle. So why should trust you now?” Here we go. “You’re just going to stab us in the back again, just like you did in Ba Sing Se! There’s nothing stopping him from telling the Firelord where we are and going back home to get his reward!”

Zuko didn’t say anything, and Toph grabbed his hand and held it. She knew he thought he deserved it, but she wasn’t going to sit by and let Katara take out all her anger on her friend.

“For fucks sake, Sugar Queen! Will you calm down? He can’t just go back, you know.” She felt Katara fume. “So you’re going to defend him after all he’s done! After he betrayed us and Aang got hurt? After his people killed my mom?”

“He didn’t fucking kill your mom!” Toph spat. “And he’s here now, to make up for what he’s done! He‘s sorry, can’t you see? Or am I the only one who can? I thought I was the blind one around here, but you all just might be blinder than me!”

Katara sputtered, but Toph kept going. ”He’s given up everything to be here! He can’t just go back! And you won’t pull your head out of your ass to just listen!”

The air was still, tense. She felt their stares boring holes into her, and she hated it. She didn’t know why she did that. She threw her bowl of food away, and marched off.

It wasn’t long before Zuko followed her. She heard his footsteps, firm but light, and he sat next to her. She couldn’t see, but she knew he was looking out over the cliffside.

“You didn’t have to do that.” Toph didn’t know why she was as angry as she was. She just was, and she wanted to break something.

“I fucking did! She doesn’t know what she’s talking about! You gave up everything to come here, and they don’t get how hard it is! They don’t have the right to say shit like that!”

“But they do. They aren’t wrong.”

“They are! They don’t understand you at all! They keep going at you, and you keep letting them! Stick up for yourself!”

“They aren’t wrong, Toph”, and that might have been the first time he’d called her by her name. “I do deserve it. I betrayed my Uncle, the one person who was always by my side, and I don’t even know if he’s even alive. Even if he is, he’ll never forgive me. I don’t deserve it.”

That made Toph go quiet. She just slumped against Zuko, and he didn’t push her off. 

“I did it because you’re my friend, dumbass. Friends help each other.”

His heart sped up again, and Toph realised too late that it had slowed down to be almost normal.

“Yeah. Friends.”

* * *

Aang had officially warmed up to Zuko after their little field trip, and Toph was annoyed because she’d called dibs first. No one was taking Zuko from her.

She dragged him off, and made him carry her around the temple again. 

“So, Dragons huh.” 

“Yeah.” He sounded like a little child who’d gotten a new toy.” They were so great, Toph. There were so many colours. It was amazing.” Toph resisted the urge to make a blind joke. She’d let him have this one.

“I thought my uncle killed the last one, but they were still alive! I couldn’t believe it! We’ve been bending the wrong way this whole time! An entire tribe of Sun Warriors!”

She couldn’t help it. She snickered, and Zuko stopped immediately. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was really adorable. You’re really a big nerd, aren’t you.”

“I’m not a nerd.”

“Don’t deny it, Sparky. I know you hide scrolls in your bag.”

“T-Those are Firebending scrolls!”

“I can tell you’re lying.”

“Shit. Wait, how do you know that? Did you snoop through my stuff?”

“Yes, I did. You don’t have much, but I found lots of sweet, sweet money.”

“Oh, I stole that from the royal reserves.”

“Hot damn, Sparky. Looks like the Firelord’s funding his own destruction. Real savage.”

Zuko’s heartbeat was slower now, and yes, Toph was paying attention this time. She could feel his face burning up with embarrassment.

“Oh don’t be all embarrassed about it. I’m not going to judge you for that. I don’t know shit about theatre. “

Zuko stopped. “You mean no one’s ever read to you?”

“Well, if you don’t count my tutors, then no, not really.”

A pause, ”Would you like it if I read to you?”

She really couldn’t care less about reading. She preferred fighting over sitting still. She couldn’t see the words anyway. There was really no point.

But he’d sounded really hopeful. It was clear he loved theatre, and it was something important to him. 

Oh, for spirits’ sake, she was turning into Sugar Queen.

“Sure, whatever Sparky.”

He rushed off to get the scrolls, and judging by the extra weight with him when he returned, he’d bought quite a few. She rolled her eyes. Nerd.

“This one is called Love Amongst the Dragons. Do you want to hear it?” She nodded.

It was amazing.

The way Zuko read each word, like he was the one in the play who was saying the lines. Toph was sure he had ditched the script altogether halfway through. The way he spoke, and made voices for each character was pretty cool. Zuko might be a horrible liar, but he was a damn good actor. It was like even she could see the characters, and she was blind.

She loved it.

“So…”She looked up in dismay, and there must have been something in her face, because he chuckled. ”I’m guessing you liked it.”

“Eh, it was ok. Not the worst thing ever.”

They sat there for a while, quietly.

“I used to read to Azula, back then. Before…everything. Back when she was actually normal and not like this. This just reminded me.”

Crazy Blue as a good sister? She couldn’t imagine it. But she could see Zuko as a big brother who would read to his sister.

He would be a good big brother. He was way better than he gave himself credit for.

“Well? Come on, Sunshine, read me another one.”

They read stories together, way up until the night. Some time in between, Zuko had gone to get his teapot and made them both tea. He made very nice tea. Not as good as his uncle’s, but she loved it all the same. They’d taken a break from reading, and he’d shown her how to write her name.

She had never done anything like it. 

It was nice. He was really nice. 

At some point, she’d slumped against Zuko again. His body was so warm, and a great reprieve from the cold air of the temple. He was like her own personal heater.

Zuko just wrapped an arm around her and kept reading. In that moment Toph came to an important decision.

She would not let anyone take him from her. Not even Sugar Queen.

She was gonna keep him.

* * *

Ember Island was pretty shitty.

The place was nice and all, but there was a lot of sand and nothing to do. She couldn’t sandbend well yet, and they had to lay low. Aang and Zuko still had a lot of Firebending to work on, so her time with Twinkletoes was cut short. 

At least Katara had finally come to her senses, and the situation wasn’t so tense. Instead, Toph spent her time laughing at Sparky as Sweetness fussed over him and told him he wasn’t eating enough. His stammering and awkward speech gave her plenty of entertainment. 

Katara and Suki had left for the market, Katara still pissed off about something that had happened at the play yesterday. Toph had decided against asking about it. She had thought about it, of course, but it really wasn’t worth her time. She had no idea where Aang and Sokka were, probably being dumbasses, and that left her with Zuko. Finally.

He was cleaning his swords, and just to get his attention, and also just cause, she bended them out of his hands. He yelped, but he didn’t squeal like Sokka would have. Shame.

“What the fuck? Oh, Toph.” 

“Whatcha doin, Sunshine?”

He huffed. “Well, I was cleaning those before you snatched them up.” She grinned and waved them around, just to spite him. To his credit, he recognised that it was futile to try and get them, and he came over to her with another huff.

“Can I have my swords back now?”

“Hmmm. Nope!”

“Why not?”

“Awww. Are these more important to you than me, Sparky? I’m so hurt!”

She could feel him begin to panic. “No, I didn’t mean it like that!”

“Relax, Sunshine. I’m just kidding around.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Toph patted the spot next to her, and she could feel Zuko turn towards the spot where she was dangling his swords around before she felt his weight next to her.

“So, what’s up with you? You’ve been all weird since we came back from that stupid play yesterday. Actually, so has everyone else.”

“It’s like I told you yesterday. Having all the mistakes I’ve ever made thrown back in my face isn’t the nicest thing to see, you know.”

“No, I wouldn’t know. I thought they were great!”

He scoffed. “The Ember Island Players and great shouldn’t be in the same sentence, ever.”

They sat there for a while longer. Zuko kept shifting in his seat. He probably wanted to take his swords back. Too bad for him, Toph had something to ask him.

“So, you have a scar, huh?”

She could feel him flinch. It was probably a sore topic. Well, no kidding.

“Y-Yeah, I do. It’s on my face. It’s kind of obvious.”

“Well Sparky, I wouldn’t know. Ya know, cause”, she waved her hand in front of her face “I’m blind”.

“Oh. Yeah, sorry.”

“You don’t have to keep apologising for everything”.

She frowned. She didn’t really know what he looked like, did she?

When she’d joined the group, she’d asked to map out the faces of her friends. It wasn’t like she cared how they looked, hell, she didn’t care what she looked like herself, but she had wanted to know. There was only so much you could see with Earthbending, not that she would ever give up seeing with her bending for a silly pair of eyes. There were so many things that she had no need to see, and there were so many things that she could see only because she was blind. Eyes were trapping, deceiving. She didn’t need them. 

But, just out of principle.

“Hey, I wanna see what you look like”.

That really took him by surprise, she could tell from the way he jerked upright in surprise. She could hazard a guess as to why. She’d probably never spoken to him as seriously as she was now.

“Um…what?”

“I wanna see what you look like”. 

“But you, uh…you can’t see. And I don’t want your feet on my face either.”

She snorted. “Of course not, dumbass. I meant with my hands. I did it to all the others, and I want to see you now”.

She felt his heart rate speed up, and quickly said, “You don’t have to, I was just asking”.

“No, I want to show you. You deserve to see it”.

Aang had been more than happy to offer up his face to her hands. She’d mapped out all the edges and ridges of his face, and had even run her hands all over his bald head. Katara had been slightly iffy but had relented, and she’d pinched Sokka for good measure. They hadn’t been bothered by it. But this was different.

Zuko had probably been deprived of any intimate touches before, if his reactions to friendly pats or hugs were anything to go by. She couldn’t rush this. It was probably very difficult for him to show her the scar on his face.

Knowing Zuko, he wouldn’t have been able to hurt himself so badly and be nervous about it. It was obvious that someone else had done it. She wondered who would have beaten Zuko and been able to scar him too. He was a great Firebender and a great Swordsman, and not many people could hurt the prince of the Fire Nation and get away with it.

There were only few who could.

She swallowed and reached out her arm, slowly, to show that she wasn’t going to hurt him. He leaned back ever so slightly, but did pull forward seconds later. He grasped her wrist and lifted it up to his face. His hands were warm, she thought, but they were shaking just enough that she could feel it.

His face was smooth and his skin was soft. She mapped out everything, every edge and ridge of his face. She ran her hand along the bridge of his nose and his lips. She felt the narrowness of his eyes, so different from the wide eyes of the rest of her friends.

She ran her hands up his left cheek, feeling for a scar. There was no cut or mark that she could feel. He took her hand and raised it upwards towards his eye. And then she felt it.

How the soft, smooth skin suddenly turned rough and coarse. The ridges became much more pronounced. The eye was shrunken, and his ear was all shrivelled up. 

It was a burn scar. It covered half his face. It was bigger than her entire hand.

Firebenders didn’t burn easy.

There were only few people who could burn the Fire Prince.

“It was my father. He challenged me to a duel, and I refused to fight. He burned me and sent me off on a fool’s errand to find the Avatar. He said it was the only way to regain my honour”.

Tears came to her eyes unbidden. She was Toph Beifong! She never cried. But here she was.

“Why did you want to go back?”

“Because I wanted him to love me. I wasted years looking for something I thought I had lost, when really, I never had it in the first place. Instead, I betrayed the one person who did love me, and now I've lost him too”.

She leaned against him, heart heavy, not for the first time.

“That’s not true. If your Uncle loves you at all, he’ll forgive you. And if he doesn’t, I’ll beat him up myself”.

He laughed, a hollow sound. “Thanks Toph”.

She said nothing, just curled up to him and leeched off his warmth.

He could have turned out a lot worse. Way worse. But he’d turned out way better.

“I think you’re a great person, Sparky. You really are. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise”. 

She couldn’t see, but she thought that he was smiling.

“Thanks, Toph. You’re really great too”.

* * *

“Hey”.

She just grunted as Zuko came up to her, still mad about her fight with Bumi being broken up. She had been so close!

“I’m sorry for earlier”.

“What, the fight? Yeah, you guys messed up the battle of the century! Great job”.

“No, not that. The time…on the beach”.

Oh, yeah. That had hurt, but she’d gotten it. It hadn’t exactly been the right time for a heart to heart anyway. She wasn’t really bothered. A bit miffed maybe, but of course Zuko thought she had taken it as a personal offense or something. That guy just didn’t get people.

“Nah, don’t worry about it, Sparky. It wasn’t exactly a great field trip, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t. It was wrong of me to have invalidated your feelings like that, especially after you listened to everything I had to say. So, I’m sorry”.

She was silent. She’d hated living at home. Her parents had been so overbearing, so overprotective, so suffocating, she’d hated it. She’d hated how they had treated her like a doll, a possession, to be kept safe and untouched. Like she was weak, fragile, To be seen and not heard.

But they’d never hurt her. She knew that they’d loved her. She’d hated how they’d treated her, but she had to admit it to herself that she still loved them despite it. 

He hadn’t had that luxury.

He’d had it way worse than her. He’d suffered much more than she had. His own father had hurt him. Had never loved him. She would never know what that was like. 

No matter how much they had in common with their parental issues, no matter how much he understood her, she would never be able to understand what he had gone through. She’d never know.

It wasn’t fair. 

It wasn’t fair that Aang had lost his people. It wasn’t fair that Katara and Sokka had lost their mother to the war.

It wasn’t fair that Zuko’s father had never loved him. That he’d tried to kill him. That he’d been so cruel to someone who was so loyal, so brave, so kind and so young. Someone who should have been loved. His own son.

It made her so sad and angry, how they’d never been able to be children the way she had.

It wasn’t fair.

It hit her hard, and she felt uncomfortable in her own skin. Her hands felt the rough, shrivelled up skin, the shrunken eye, even though her hands were clenching her dress and were nowhere near his face.

She wondered if he could see through that eye.

“Actually, I can’t really see that great with it, so, uh…”

“Whoa there, was I talking out loud?”

“Um…yeah? Just the last part, I guess”.

“Oh. So, you can’t see?”

“Well, not really. I can’t really hear on that side either. I learnt to adapt to having a disadvantage on one side. I always protect the left. Uncle helped me with that”. He finally sounded happy talking about his uncle. She was glad.

“Hey, we’ve got one and a half eyes between the both of us. Maybe we should start a blind people only club and go do some crazy shit”.

“I think I should be concerned about where this conversation is headed”.

“Nonsense, you’ll love it! We could go scam some people”.

“We shouldn’t do that, Toph”.

“You’re such a party pooper, Sunshine. Katara and I tried to pull off a great big scam once”.

“Katara? Scams? I don’t believe it”.

“It’s true. You really wanna be beaten by Katara, Mr. Blue Spirit, scourge of the Fire Nation? Has being told you’ll be the next Firelord made you lose your sense of fun?”

“No way. Let’s do it”.

“We’ll run rampant across the streets and scam everyone we see! It’ll be great!”

He laughed. “Yeah, it really will”

* * *

“Your tea is just as great as I remember it, uncle”.

Toph sipped at her tea as Iroh waved her compliment away. “Thank you, Toph. Your compliment is greatly appreciated”.

“Like, I love Sparky’s tea and all, but yours is the best, ya know?”

“Why thank you. It is truly an honour to hear that from the greatest Earthbender in the world”.

Toph bared her teeth. “Damn straight”.

Iroh laughed, and Toph joined in as she heard Zuko protesting wildly as Aang dragged him who-knows where(“Aang, no! I’m not going to do it”. “Come on, Sifu Hotman, you gotta keep the Hotman culture alive!” “Don’t call me that!”).

“I’m so proud of him”. Uncle’s voice was soft and full of pride. “I’d always feared that he would lose his way, but he found it again”.

“Yeah, it really is great. He’s great’. Her grin turned into a playful frown. “But don’t tell him I said that, okay?”

Iroh chuckled. “I would never”.

At this point, Zuko came running in with the added weight of Aang on his back. “Uncle, help me!”

“I’m afraid you’re on your own for this one, Sparky. Uncle’s with me”.

Zuko sputtered as Uncle voiced his assent. She sipped her tea. It was almost as entertaining as watching Sokka make a fool of himself.

“So, Toph, what will you do now?”

She blinked. “I dunno”.

There was nothing left to do. The war was over, and she had nothing to do.

She didn’t want to go back home. Her parents would just smother her again. She would lose all the freedom she’d gained, ever. That wasn’t an option.

“I don’t want to go back”. The ‘where’ was implied.

After a long silence, Sparky spoke up. “If you want, I could give you a position in the court”.

“Wait, what? Me?”

“You could help me out a lot, you know. To weed out all the corrupt minsters and all the Ozai supporters. We are going to have to re-form the council anyway. And-“

“And you just want me around, don’tcha Sparky?”

“Well, uh, yeah. It would be nice if you stayed”.

“Yeah!” Twinkletoes slid of Zuko and propelled himself towards her, the wind brushing the side of her face gently. “I’m sure Zuko would love to have you around!”

“Alright then, I accept! Dumbass ministers, here I come!”

“Yeah!” cheered Aang cheered, and ran off like the flighty little Airbender that he was.

She turned to Sparky. “Now you don’t have to worry about those noble assholes at all, Sparky. I’ll take care of em!”

“If you’re sure”.

“I’ll have you know that I was a noble before I ran away. The best way to deal with dull shits like them is a rock to the face”.

“I’m sure that royal etiquette mentioned that somewhere”.

“Yeah, it better have. Cause Toph Beifong, the greatest Earthbender in the world says it’s true. And I’m coming for their heads!”

Iroh chuckled, and Zuko laughed along with him. It was one of the best sounds she’d ever heard.

The tea in her hands felt warm. It was pretty soothing, reminding her of cuddles and stuff like that.

The people around her were pretty great too.

Toph would have never imagined becoming a part of the Avatar’s trusty gang a few months ago. Even more, she would never have expected to become close to the prince of the Fire Nation, or to ever make him laugh.

But here she was, and here he was too. Laughing, and she was the one that made him do it.

Somewhere along the way, Zuko had wormed himself into her heart, and found a place next to the rest of her friends. She loved them and now she loved him too.

This family was perfect. 

Fuck Crazy Blue. She didn’t deserve someone like Zuko. She was gonna keep him, for better or worse.

Zuko was her big brother now.

And there was not a thing anyone could do about it.

Toph sipped her tea, relishing in the mix of the sweetness and bitterness that it brought to her tongue in a proper balance. Just like her life right now. 

Perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and thanks for reading!
> 
> This is my first fic for ATLA. I thought it was long overdue for me to write one, and Toph and Zuko is my BroTP. So of course I would write about them! I am not completely pleased with it towards the end, so I may come back to edit it.
> 
> Please consider dropping a comment if you liked this fic. It would make my day if you did!
> 
> Thanks again for reading! Hope you liked it!


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